


Noise

by kagirinai



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Canon Related, Established Relationship, Feelings, Feels, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, One Shot, Pining, Post-chapter 105, Sad, Spoilers, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 09:28:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16658546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kagirinai/pseuds/kagirinai
Summary: Dim green eyes. Empty, staring at the void.Neglected. Filthy. Irremediably stained, monstrous.Beautiful as ever.It made him nauseous.Even you.





	Noise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Machirudaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Machirudaa/gifts).



 

An image.

Burnt in his mind. Painfully carved into his memory.

A vivid, clear reflection of reality, too vivid, threatening to overtake his mind every time he dares to close his eyes. Lasting no more than a few seconds.

A lamentable figure, strained on the floor. Its contour, its features, unfading details. Each of them filling the darkness that should have met his closed eyelids.

But the more he tries to push it away, the more vivid it resurfaces, violent, insistent.

The faint color of the bruise on his shoulder, the pale shape of his lower lip, chapped, bleeding, the strands of hair brushing his face. Volatile details his mind had decided to pick up on its own accord, shaping up an image that no longer resembled to the person it used to belong to.

Dim green eyes. Empty, staring at the void.

Neglected. Filthy. Irremediably stained, monstrous.

Beautiful as ever.

It made him nauseous.

_Even you._

 

 

Thinking about it, it wasn’t sudden. It wasn't unexpected, even. The slow, inexorable darkness that had been grasping at him for so long now. Eating him up, swallowing all the passion, the drive, the anger. The feelings.

No, it wasn’t unpredictable. Very much the contrary. Not only foreseeable, but unavoidable.

A creeping curse ticking away.

He had realized it. Not after long, he had understood.

That darkness would be the end of him.

He had seen it appear clearly, in his eyes, in dull gestures, in void expressions that distorted his features. Passing moments, too brief to be noticed, too casual. Transparent windows on his soul, accidental glimpses. Surfacing at unexpected times.

Too insignificant to be noticed.

But he had. He had noticed.

And he had thought he could stop it, fix it somehow, almost really believed, at times, really believed that he could.

That he could help him.

In those nights when he could feel his thoughts drifting far away, and he held on to him a little longer, just a little stronger, whispered words and warm breaths in the dark, broken promises against trembling lips, just a little bit more, a little bit more.

How pathetic. When had he ever been able to control anything?

A world spinning around as always, ever the same, since the beginning, since forever, following the same narrative, repeatedly, over and over again. Illogic. Cruel. All he could remember, since way back.

Had he thought this could be different?

Different. Perhaps.

An exception.

Special.

Never regarded himself as special. But he, oh, he was special. Beautiful. He could be the exception. He could have been. Or so he thought.

A deep suffocated breath fills the air. It echoes against the walls of the cold room.  The thought of that cell arising slowly but steady in the back of his mind. The figure lying in semidarkness, inside. So close, yet so distant.

He had lost him.

He had lost him. The sudden truth stinging him to the depths of his soul, weighing painfully on his mind, spreading like poison throughout his body.

A threatening realization.

But he doesn’t really feel it. He made it a point not to. Not to feel anything, again. Once more. Like before. Before him.

He shuts his eyes closed. Instinct.

A poor attempt at escaping the pain.

_Don’t._

The image is there, yet again.

_Don’t. Not hate, not rage, not hurt._

He breaths. Slowly.

The familiar numbness surrounds him _._

A passing thought. He suppresses it.

_Not love._

He takes a sip of tea and resumes scribbling.

 

 

\--------

  

He observes him walking through the dark corridor and approaching the bars.

Doesn’t touch them, keeps a safe distance.

A safe distance. Old habits resurfacing.

The purple under his eyes that cannot be concealed, not even by the dim light of the torches.

“I see.” 

Couldn’t recognize his own voice right now. Coarse from the prolonged silence, distant, cold. A bitter laugh escapes his lips, not matched by the empty look on his eyes.  It resounds between the small, enclosed walls.

He stares at him. To no avail. Doesn’t meet his gaze. Doesn’t talk. Doesn’t flinch.

His usual, unreadable expression fixed on his face.

Another old habit of his. A façade, a defensive maneuver.

He knows better. He’s always known. His thoughts, his feelings. 

He can tell. Like an open book.

Ever since before. Ever since then.

_Then_.

A passing thought. He suppresses it. Looks away.

“Eren.”

The voice coming from the other side of the bars is tired, somehow restless at the same time.

Disheartened.

He suddenly remembers the first night at the headquarters. Remembers her, her lips moving until the first lights of the morning.

The passion in her words vibrating, the uncontrollable stream of words. 

The curiosity. The hope.

It feels like an eternity ago. 

“It’s been almost two weeks. You won’t tell us anything.”

A statement with no addressee. A little more than a whisper. Not a question. Directed more at herself than anything. Frustration long disappeared from her tone, exhaustion taking its place, being all that’s left.

He understands that. Exhaustion. He does.

“So you brought him here.”

Not a question, either.

He knows. He is aware of the implications. He understands this too well, this situation.

She’s not subtle. Never been.

“I thought it would make you feel…”

Pause.

She hesitates.

_Happy? Safe?_

The words never sounded more meaningless. Useless.

She stares at his void gaze.

“ _Better_.”

The only thing she manages to say. Still horribly not sounding right. A lie.

There’s no helping him anymore. There’s not helping it anymore.

That much is painfully clear.

“You thought I’d talk.”

Silence, enveloping the room. The echo of those final words reverberating. Exhaustion, and despair, and something else, unspoken. 

“But you won’t.”

His voice somehow sounds completely different, and yet the same as ever. Low. Determined. An undertone he can’t really recognize.

He did not expect him to talk. A nuance that was there on that ship as well. Their last exchange.

He was not prepared for him to talk. Resignation. Despair, maybe.

It’s new. He can’t read it.

It’s painful.

He shoves the thought aside.

Doesn’t answer. There’s no need to.

The questions keep coming, as usual, a routine to which he’s gotten used to by now, the same ones, in the same order, following the same rhythm, a mantra. The same tone, same voice, same phrasing. To whose benefit, he doesn’t know. She doesn’t expect any reaction from him, that much is clear. To her, to himself. To him. He won’t talk. Nothing different than usual. The same. He keeps staring at his feet, at the chains holding him down. At the ground. Anywhere he can fix his gaze. And avoids listening. Thinking. Feeling.

The other keeps silent.

He notices.

He shoves the thought aside.

_It had to be done. It had to be done._

His own mantra playing in the background of his mind like a spell.

Or a curse.

Leaving outside everything else. Can’t hear. Doesn’t want to.

The sound of their footsteps, heavy on the staircase, doesn’t have him raise his head. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t need to look. He can imagine it, clear, as if it was happening right in front of his eyes. The back of the man he once knew too well. Like he had never known anybody. That knew him too well.

Too well.

Too well for their own good, maybe.

Turned against him, leaving him behind.

A wall. Life is just a series of walls, after all. 

The same back he had admired back then. Back then, when he was still capable of dreaming, the undying passion, the drive guiding his every thought, movement, word, daring to burn his surroundings.

To burn himself, as well, in the process.

That same back he had hold on to years later, when he had learnt the deep meaning of caring for somebody else.

Without noticing. Something outside of him. A drive, different from anything he had felt until then.

A form of peace. Not rage, not violence, not revenge. Longing for one another. Nights spent recovering their humanity, easing each other’s pain.

A medicine.

That back he had held on to when everything became too much. Light touches on the neck, gentle fingertips, hair nuzzling skin. The darkness.

When his surroundings wouldn’t let him breathe, when he felt suffocating and he was the only thing keeping him sane.

Alive. There.

A familiar sensation. He feels sick.

He doesn’t care. He can’t care.

He shoves the thought aside.

_\-------_

A dream. No, a memory.

He keeps his eyes closed, though his body starts responding to reality again. He doesn’t usually sleep. A couple restless hours, at most. Never been able to, from what he remembers.

Tonight is no different.

With him there, it was a bit different. A bit better.

Just his presence next to him. His voice. His hands. His warmth.

It doesn’t really matter now.

He’s wished for him to be there for a long time, now. All that time he was gone.

Wishing, and denying. Because he left him. No reason, no explanations. Not a word, or a letter. Never a letter.

And yet wishing, longing, yearning.

He’d never been able to understand the human heart. He felt no closer to do that now.

No excuses, not an apology. Nothing.

He came back, and it meant nothing.

Nothing changed. He made it pointless.

They both did.

His mind drifts away again, reliving the memory in the silence of the room. He keeps his eyes closed. Doesn’t want to open them.

The image is still vivid.

_The sound of the waves. The wet sand underneath the moonlight._

_The small back staring at the ocean, legs brought to the chest._

_Sitting._

_The water brushing his feet. Never looked more vulnerable. More fragile. Somehow weaker than when it shook, oh, he had seen it shaking many times._

_Many nights._ _Too many._

_“They are looking for you.”_

_Silence._

_Unspoken words, suspended in the air. Gaze fixed at the ocean._

_He had seen his expression that morning._

_His heart had ached. Did not expect it to be like that. Did not expect him to be like that._

_It should have been different._

_So he had hoped. He wanted it to be different. For him, at least. He desperately wanted to._

_Still, the sickness that was slowly but surely making its way into his heart had enclosed it too much now._

_Too late._ _It was already too late. Already out of control._

_His voice unexpectedly resounding in the night. Filled with pain. Fragile, too fragile._

_“Will this ever stop?”_

_The desperate research for an answer. He knew it. He understood._

_He had felt it, always, ever since then. Ever since that time. Only growing worse, more desperate, more painful. Worse, with every passing day. With every fight, death, with every breath._

_Unforgiving._

_He wishes he could have protected him. He wishes he didn’t have to see this. To feel this._

_He wishes he could have stayed like that, like before. Beautiful, beautiful. Pure. He was far too tainted already. It wasn't right. It didn’t feel right._

_Powerless._ _So undeserving. He couldn’t save him. He wouldn’t be able to._

_The voice coming out of him sounds old, tired, somehow broken. Far, like it belonged to somebody else._

_Powerless._ _No answers. No beautiful words. He wasn’t beautiful, he had never been._

_The other was. And he couldn’t save him._ _He couldn’t._

_“I don’t know.”_

_“I’m tired.”_

_“I know.”_

_“I’m tired.”_

He should have known. He should have, at the time. Predictable. A dim script, waiting to happen.

Why remember this now?

They had stared at the stars that night. Like that, under the moon, on the beach. Not speaking a word, silently sitting next to each other. And staring. Up. Forward, somehow.

Or so he had thought.

Painful. Painful to remember. How he had wanted to hold all the answers. Give them to him, in nice and convenient words. Make it better, make it okay.

All of it. The noise surrounding them.

For him.

The frustration. Erasing all of it.

Powerless. All he could do, at the time, was standing there.

Next to him.

Hoping it would be enough. It should have been enough.

It hadn’t.

It’s no different now. It’s not, and yet, years later, he still finds himself to feel equally inadequate. Painfully so.

Feeling the same way. No different.

Only this time, the distance is wider. A wall between them. An ocean. An obstacle, far too big. Too wide.

Outside reach.

Guilt, regret, sadness, washing over him in waves, reverberating, like those that violently infringed on the shore that night.

He couldn’t save him, no. He could only witness. Slowly accompany him to the depths of despair. The words spoken on that boat relentlessy echoing in his head. An unreal smell of blood, too strong to be a memory.

Unfair.

Desperate eyes. Disbelief, somehow traced on those once young features. He looked so old. Worn out.

Far too gone. Both of them, far too gone to understand each other any longer. Or to want to understand.

Far too hurt.

_“You told me to make the choice I’d regret the least”_

Ah. Yes. He did.

He supposes he did. The dark irony grasping his mind, taking away his breath. 

He had done that.

He feels like crying. Rare.

Brought it upon himself. Upon both of them.

He feels like laughing. Ironic.

He doesn’t really know. He has never known. Not one thing. Could never make sense of one damn thing.

And he’s moving now, finding himself somehow standing, walking through the empty corridors. 

The steps echoing soundly against the pavement.

It’s all he can hear. It’s all he focuses on.

To keep it in. To keep it together.

He can’t make sense of it. Can never make sense of it.

Heart thumping so hard it hurts. Blood pumping in the veins. Anger. Frustration. What he didn’t feel for all this time, alone. Couldn’t feel. Couldn’t allow himself to feel, even without him. Even alone. Precisely because he was alone. Because he was not there.

Resurfacing all at once, violently, leaving him breathless, the door to the dungeon jerking violently open, no time for composure, can’t find it in him to remain calm, not even when he sees the man behind the bars startled, disturbed by the sudden noise, a reaction, _now you choose to react_ , why now, why like this, a reaction, all he had hoped for, and now he gets it, he gets it but it’s gone, gone again, eyes fixed on the ground again, sitting on the bed, chains pulling at his hands and feet, a hurt animal, the same look, exactly the same, he knows, he’s seen it, he’s seen it many times.

Staring at the ground. At the chains.

Everywhere but at him. Not at him. Never at him.

He doesn't need to look to tell who it is. He can feel it before hearing his voice, a thunder breaking the silence of the quiet, humid place.

He feels it in the air. The storm coming.

He knew it was a matter of time. Yet he hoped he had had more.

He was not ready. Not for this. He’ll never be.

“How was _this_ the choice you regret the less?” 

A snarl. All composure gone, voice strained. Hands holding onto the bars, pale knuckles, red tips. The feeling of the cold material against the hot blood rushing through his veins.

 

_Look at me. Look at me._

 

He doesn’t look.

“I gather you are still having troubles sleeping, Captain.”

“Cut the bullshit.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“I can see that. I asked you a question.”

“I heard it.”

“ _Eren_.”

An order. A plead.

The rare urgency in his voice.

 

_Give_ _me something_.  _Anything_.

 

“I had to do it.”

“No.”

“I had to.”

“No. Stop.”

“You wanted an answer.”

“And that’s not it. You’re not answering.”

“You not liking it doesn’t make it any less true.”

“You’re not answering.”

“I had to.”

“You didn’t have to do anything. You had to trust us.”

“Levi.”

 “You had to have faith. Instead you ran away, disappeared and made a mess hoping we somehow cleaned after you.”

“Levi.”

“You had to be there. We were there for you. We all were.”

“I know.”

“I was.”

 

_Look at me._ _Look at me._

 

Eyes remaining fixed on the ground. Impenetrable.

Silence heavy once again. Almost too heavy.

It makes it hard to breath. To think.

Useless questions filling his mind. Not questions, no.

One. Only one.

A simple word, the same he’s been repeating for months now, asleep and awake, always the same.

_Why._

He feels it again, the emotions so strong they threaten to spill from his fingertips.

_Why, why, why._

He clings to the bars.

 

“They don’t trust you anymore.”

“I know.”

“You don’t care.”

An accusation.

_Why_.

He remembers it all too well. Many years ago, when it was still simple. Easier, despite everything. The pride burning in his eyes. The thirst. The hurt. The desire to break free, to simply break, the limitations, the everyday.

To break through, to break away.

To prove something. To himself, to the others. No matter how difficult. No matter how painful.

The look in his eyes. The fire. The shine.

 

“You used to care. Desperately.”

“Do you?”

“Care?”

“Trust.” He pauses. “Me.”

He stares up, and he could have sworn he saw it, his eyes, flinching with something, something, for the first time since he got back. He could have sworn it. A spark, an emotion of some kind, back on his lifeless gaze for no more than a couple of seconds.

What was it, now. Anguish? Regret?

He couldn’t tell. The silent plead, the truth laying beneath it.

There it was again, sudden and irrational, a burn coming all at once, clogging his throat. The sensation strong enough to make him stop, his mind clouded.

He couldn’t make sense of it. Of his feelings. Of the man standing in front of him, so broken and somehow so incredibly strong and obstinate.

As usual. So familiar, so close. And yet terribly different, unbelievably far. Out of reach, closed to any possible interpretation.

He had always been so easy to read.

An open book, a bundle of vulnerable, powerful nerves, and feelings, and emotions.So easy it was ridiculous. So easy he could have laughed, to himself, at his bluntness, wished he could have been subtler, but not really, no.

So easy he could have blushed. His stubbornness. His insecurities.

He looks again into his eyes. The spark is gone.

He can’t answer that question.

It’s unfair. He should know it’s unfair.

He has no means to ever answer that question. He should know.

 

“I can never make it okay.”

 

And he knows. Of course he does. His tone is unbearable.

The outline of that chapel flashes through his mind. The same hurt, but steadier, inexpressive. An empty acknowledgment.

No tears, not tonight. Just the crushing weight of the truth they both know has been hanging on them, suspended, threatening to break them this entire time.

It’s different. Somehow, even more painful.

It builds up in his stomach like a punch.

The urge, the sudden need, desperate, to _get_ to him, to really get to him, through him, physically, emotionally, surpassing the bars, the walls, the ocean, to kiss, kiss him, kiss his pain away.

Kiss it all away. All of this hurt. His own, as well.

The urge to whisper on those lips, whatever it is they want to hear. Promises, empty words, nostalgic feelings. Lies.

All of it, in ragged, warm breaths. Melting.

The urge to know that it’s okay. That it will be. That it can be. 

The urge to lie, because it can never be. Lying, and being lied to.

To kiss some life back into those eyes.

To heal him. To be healed. Once again.

It’s too much. It’s all too much.

He doesn’t move.

 

It comes at last.

The urge to run away.

Away from this cellar, from its suffocating humidity. To run back with all his might, just as he came in there in the first place.

Can’t stand it. It’s nauseating.

Can’t ever begin to fathom how he could have possibly brought his tired body in here. His worn-out heart.

The humidity cripples at his skin, he feels it crawling.

He doesn’t move.

 

“I thought about writing to you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t.”

“Why?”

He’s met with silence again.

A pathetic ghost of a conversation. A pathetic ghost of their former selves.

“You should have said it. That you were leaving.”

“Yes.”

“You should have told me.”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t. Why?”

Once again. More pressing this time. Urgent.

He thinks. Chooses the words carefully, aligning them, carefully selecting them out of a million others.

Slowly. He says it slowly, silently.

 

“You would have stopped me.”

“You can’t be stopped.”

 

Violently, it spills out of his mouth, without thinking. Without control. Rigid, definitive.

Nothing has ever sounded more real. Nothing he has ever said.

He doesn’t recall ever thinking it. Yet nothing has ever felt more real.

The truth, it hits him, the truth he’s known all this time already.

Unconsciously. Or not.

A lie. Another one.

A force of nature. Beautiful, unstoppable fire, burning everything on his path. Everyone around him.

He remembers it, that time he thought he could control him. Keep him under control. Keep him safe. Stop him from getting out of hand.

A life ago. A thought so ironically ridiculous.

How naive. Too unbelievably naive.

Stopping him.

He can’t be stopped. Could never be stopped.

That look in the courtroom. The very first words they exchanged, behind the bars, so young. Too young.

A familiar sensation, an unpleasant dejavù. Enough to send a chill down his spine.

It’s different now.

 

“I can’t stop. I’m doing this for you. For all of you. I have to do this. For you, too. You need to understand that.”

“I don’t need to understand anything.”

“I _need_ you to.”

 

And it’s desperate. A plead. Another one. More explicit, this time.

He can’t take it anymore. It hurts. It hurts everywhere. His strained tone, the painful look in his eyes, ringing in his ears, carving its way into his mind, echoing his own. 

Too much. Too hurt, too lonely, too tired.

It’s too much.

He never asked for any of this. He never wanted any of this. He can’t take it anymore. Neither of them can. 

There’s nothing more to say. No questions, no answers. No words to be exchanged.

Nothing that would make sense. Nothing that would make a difference.

Or maybe there’s just too many. All at once. Two separate worlds not colliding anymore.

There’s no point. There’s no point anymore.

 

“Goodnight, Eren.”

He turns his back, starts walking away.

Eyes closed, again. Shut.

He only hears it when he’s about to climb the first step.

“You might, one day. You might understand.”

He stops, only for a second. Then he keeps going. Doesn’t look back.

The sound of the old wooden door is the only thing resounding through the silence of the night.  

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For introducing me to this world, and pushing me to share a piece of me. For pushing me, always.  
> For being there. More than I can say.


End file.
